Teeth

The myth of “vagina dentata” is taken to slasher film extremes in this horror comedy that had many male audience members at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival squirming in their seats – and thinking that maybe the abstinence that young Dawn O’Keefe (Jess Weixler) so passionately advocates during the film’s first act might not be such a bad idea. Despite being a spokesperson for the Christian group called The Promise that believes in waiting for marriage, Dawn can’t quite keep her teenage hormones at bay for too long; that ends up being really too bad for her the object of her desire, Tobey (Hale Appleman), whose insistence that their heavy petting go to the next level ends up having very bloody consequences. Mortified, Dawn seeks the counsel of a gynecologist (Josh Pais) and the comfort of another cute classmate (Ashley Springer), only to find herself in situations that encourage her to use her new-found “powers”; soon, Dawn has inadvertently turned her “curse” into a weapon and reinvented herself as a sexual avenger, a one-woman feminist force armed to the “Teeth” from which no molesting stepbrother (or any other sexual predator) is safe. A cinematic argument for keeping it in your pants (way in your pants) if there ever was one; if the sight of severed penises being devoured by crabs and dogs isn’t your thing, you might want to stay far away (though you probably figured that already). Jess Weixler received a Special Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at Sundance for her “juicy and jaw-dropping performance.” – IFC Staff